NC Mountains Pre-Conference Artists

Tom Alward

In 2005, Tom Alward began wood firing in his undergraduate studies at Northern Arizona University. He soon developed an interest in using unconventional and local materials in his studio work during residencies at The Cub Creek Foundation and Anderson Ranch Arts Center in 2009 & 2010. Soon afterward, he constructed his own wood kiln and studio outside of Prescott, Arizona, where he began researching local iron-bearing clays and the process of reduction cooling.

Now in his 2nd year of graduate studies as an MFA Candidate at Utah State University, Tom is actively pursuing a similar direction for making pots and sculpture. His current practice focuses on interpreting and physically using the southwest landscape as a source of investigation for the material essence of clay.

William Baker

William Baker has worked as a studio potter in western North Carolina for the last 14 years,initially as a resident artist at the Odyssey Center in Asheville before establishing his own studio in Bakersville near the Penland School of Crafts. William creates functional and sculptural work beginning on the wheel and fired in a wood burning soda kiln. From the initial design of each piece to the loading and firing of the kiln, William strives towards a balance between refinement and the constant exploration of process, observing and sharing the interactions between clay and fire.

Amanda Hollomon Cook

Amanda Hollomon-Cook is a potter working in Marshall, North Carolina in both her personal studio as well as East Fork Pottery. Her work plays with the removal of utility, each piece informing the next. She focuses on subtle shapes referencing eggs or seed pods with surfaces ranging from quiet to archaic. The forms are made with the intention to bring an aesthetic complement and offer a grounded context to the space they occupy.

In 2007 Josh Copus graduated from university and bought a house on two acres of land outside of Marshall, NC. He intentionally burned down that house, built an outhouse, a kiln shed, and began construction on a three chambered climbing kiln that would become know as the “Temple”. Since then the Temple has been fired 37 times and the land has been transformed from a swamp into a center for woodfired ceramics. Two more kilns were built in 2010 and recent years have seen the addition of various infrastructure improvements, including a studio, a barn, wild clay processing facility, contemplative labyrinth garden, and the party plaza.

For Josh the land project is an extension of his creative process and equally import as his work in the studio. The land is an ongoing sculpture and a conduit for his interests is community interaction and social practice work. The WNC Pre-Heat will be the largest event held on the land to date and an exciting opportunity to share it with all of you.

Will Dickert

Will Dickert is a studio potter in Asheville, NC. He was raised in Southwestern Virginia and attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville where he earned a BA with a focus in ceramics and was awarded a NC teaching licensure for k-12 art education.

He aims to create stoneware objects that are fresh in design and intent, but that embody a feeling of sentimentality and familiarity. His work is wood-fired using a number of techniques and kilns, both traditional and contemporary in design and effect. His work is driven by a strong affinity and love for the Southern Appalachian region, its people and traditions. Teaching is a passion that continues to play a significant role in his involvement in the arts in his community.

Kim Ellington

Kim Ellington uses a wood-fired "groundhog" kiln of his own design which he built in 1999. It is a modification of the traditional Catawba Valley kiln but, he increased the height for more stacking space, added side stoking holes for more even temperature and tapered the rear of the kiln to the chimney. A typical firing cycle is 18 hours using yellow pine.

Jennifer Halli

Having spent many years as a self-taught metalsmith, Jennifer Halli started working in clay during a decade long spell of living in New Zealand. Looking to hone her wheel and woodfiring skills, she moved to Australia and apprenticed to Robert Barron, in Kardella, VIC.

Following on from chasing wombats, travels took Jennifer back to the USA where she was introduced to the American craft scene by way of The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design; here she was able to mentor the next generation of makers. When spreadsheets became too much, Peter Callas was in need of an assistant. Taking finely tuned skills from Rob and throwing them out the window at Peter’s, it was time for graduate school.

Today, when not travelling whenever and wherever possible, Jennifer spends her time at University of Massachusetts |Dartmouth as a Distinguished Art Fellow.

Michael Hunt and Naomi Dalglish

Bandana Pottery is Michael Hunt and Naomi Dalglish. They live and work in the mountains of Western North Carolina in the town of Bandana, and they continually search the region for wild clays and materials to use in their pots and glazes. The mystery of white slip over the landscape of coarse dark clay inspires them and they eagerly explore the relationship between clay, slip, glazes, and the affects of their wood-fired kiln. This sense of discovery propels and continues when you bring their pots into your home and creatively interact with them in your daily rituals, sense of space, and celebratory meals.

Our pots are fired in a large wood-burning kiln which is a modification of traditional kilns from Thailand. During a visit to Thailand in 1998 Michael was fascinated by the beautiful shape of Thai wood-fired kilns. This shape seemed like it could be adapted to fit the criteria they needed. The most interesting thing to them about the Thai shape is the way its form imitates a flame. After much thought and research we altered the shape and proportions to improve structure, working comfort, and to give more articulate firing control.The pots are loaded through the door in the front of the kiln, which is then bricked up for the firing. The kiln is continually stoked with wood for thirteen to sixteen hours until the pots are 2350 degrees Fahrenheit and the glazes have melted. The wood ash from the kiln lands on the pots and creates subtle variation in the clay and glazes. The varying atmosphere from reduced (or “smoky”) to oxidized (or “clean burning”) also has a powerful effect.

Shawn Ireland

After 20 years, Shawn Ireland still make pots with food, flowers and candles in mind. He choose to make these pots with a foundation in folk tradition, this involves using a variety of hand processed local clays and glaze materials; and single firing in a wood burning kiln while using a kick wheel. For him, these ingredients promote surprises and keep his craft connected to the natural world.

His pots continue to change over time under the influence of pottery making traditions adopted from my teachers Will Ruggles and Douglass Rankin. Several trips to Italy inspired a figurative direction in the form of candlesticks, vases and bowls which he calls Animalware.

The clay, Ireland mixes by hand, is a blend of ingredients from North Carolina and Georgia. Thirty percent of the body is local red clay. The nontoxic glazes, which melt at 2300 degrees, are composed primarily of local feldspar, silica, red clay, kaolin and ash from my woodstove.

He fires in a two chambered, 130 cu ft kiln fueled with poplar, oak and maple strips which are salvaged from burn piles at a nearby sawmill. The pots are raw glazed and single fired for 18-20 hours. The combination of wood flame and ash can produce colors and surfaces reminiscent of objects found in nature. Like these objects, wood fired pots can look similar to each other but never identical. This unpredictability and variation makes every kiln load a new start.

Kazuya Ishida

Kazuya Ishida was born in Bizen, Japan, a town famous for traditional pottery. He uses noborigama and anagama wood fired kilns. He trained with Jun Isezaki (National Living Treasure in Bizen) for 4years then spent time in the UK learning different style of pottery. He makes sculptures and vases featuring his distinctive spiraling marks, created with a technique inspired by a teenage love of breakdancing. Also, traveling for overseas made him realize the beauty of the natural world. Working with clay from local rice fields and mountains, he make pieces inspired by shells and rocks.

Jones Pottery

Jones Pottery is owned and operated by Matt and Christine Jones in the beautiful Big Sandy Mush Valley of Leicester, North Carolina (just west of Asheville in Buncombe county).

After loading the kiln with approximately 1200 pots, a small fire is set and maintained for a couple of days to finish drying out the ware. Then we slowly increase the temperature 100 degrees per hour until we reach 2300 degrees.

With our top temperature hovering around 2300 in the front of the kiln, we stoke wood through the side ports rhythmically for the another ten or twelve hours to even out the temperature in the back of the kiln.

Eric Knoche

Eric Knoche uses various styles of wood firing in his naborigama kiln to create his surface affects, but one that he has focused on is a deviation of a charcoal shoveling technique often used in Bizen, Japan. He was introduced to this process of firing by his teacher Jeff Shapiro.

During loading, Knoche leaves 4 to 6 inches of clearance between shelf layers next to stoke ports to shovel in the charcoal. At various points in the firing he covers the work on each level with charcoal using a long stainless steel chute. A wide range of effects are possible, depending on the variables of the firing, which include the materials and forms, the kind of charcoal, when its introduced; and the time, temperature and rate of the firing.

Joshua Kuensting

Joshua Kuensting earned his MFA in Ceramics from Utah State University. He was a Studio Lab Coordinator at Winthrop University, a Core Fellow at Penland School of Craft and holds a BA in Psychology from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He has exhibited his work in numerous national shows. He is currently a Resident Artist at the Clay Studio of Missoula in Montana.

Drawing inspiration from the works of contemporary studio potters who were influenced by historic Asian ceramics, Joshua designs his pottery with an eye for what he calls “the landscape of the table.” Each utilitarian piece is functional and aesthetically pleasing alone; but taken together they create a space that enhances people's communal dining experience.

Dian Magie

Dian Magie became a full time potter following her position as Director of the UNC Center for Craft, Creativity and Design, from 2000-2010. She was responsible for bringing Nina Hole in 2006 to create one of her fire sculptures at Appalachian State University during a residency working with students from WNC colleges and Universities. Dian attended numerous workshops at Penland, Arrowmont and La Meridiana in Italy since moving to North Carolina in 2000, and for the last 15 years has assisted potter Judith Duff in loading and firing her train kiln. In 2012 she built a fast fire, cross-draft wood kiln with 36 cubic feet of ware space designed by Will Baker for its ease of loading and stoking, firing four times a year.

Courtney Martin

Courtney Martin is a full time studio potter living and working in the mountains of North Carolina near Penland. She grew up just outside of New York City on Long Island. After high school Courtney went to college at the University of New Mexico. During her first year at UNM, she took a ceramics class on a whim and fell in love with clay. After graduating with a BFA in ceramics, Courtney moved to western North Carolina to work with and apprenticed for Terry Gess, Michael Kline, Cynthia Bringle, and others. While working with other potters, learning more about making pottery and the business of pottery, Courtney continued to develop her own voice in ceramics. She has taken and assisted in classes at Penland, Arrowmont, Odyssey and Santa Fe Clay. In 2006 she stopped working for others and began making her living making pots. In 2007 Courtney was awarded the Regional Artists Project Grant towards funding to build a kiln. By August of 2007 she had completed building her wood fired cross draft climbing kiln. Since building her kiln, Courtney work has continued to grow and find audiences all over the world. In July 2010 Courtney had a solo show in Okinawa, Japan. She is represented by (among others) Freehand Gallery, Penland Gallery and Taos Clay.

Shane Mickey

Shane Mickey was born in Ridgeley, WV. a small rural town in northeastern West Virginia. He grew up in a family that worked with their hands and promoted a hard work ethic.

In Western Maryland, at Frostburg State University, Shane found the ceramics department near the end of his studies and was quickly drawn over to an art major. Shane finished graduate school in 2000 from the University of Tennessee.

Searching for a more relaxed lifestyle and more tranquility Shane moved to the mountains of Western North Carolina where he operates a full time studio with his son, Evan. In 2016 his return to teaching began at Mars Hill University’s Fine Arts Ceramics program where he trains students to become successful potters as well as successful business people. Shane has been a board member on his local arts council, Founding potter of the Spruce Pine Potters Market, a member of Potters of the Roan, and the Southern Highland Craft Guild as well as the American Craft Council. His work has been shown in numerous galleries and shows across the country, including; Morean Arts Center, Charlie Cummings Gallery, The Signature Shop in Atlanta, GA, The Strictly Functional Pottery National, and Blue spiral One in Asheville, NC.

Shane Mickey is owner of the Spring Creek Anagama, a community wood kiln in Bakersville, North Carolina and Maintains Shane Mickey Pottery and Showroom in downtown Bakersville.

Akira Satake

For Akira Satake, the act of creation is a collaboration between him, the clay and the fire. Collaboration means finding what the clay wants to be and bringing out its beauty in the way that the beauty of our surroundings is created through natural forces. Undulations in sand that has been moved by the wind, rock formations caused by landslides, the crackle and patina in the wall of an old house; all these owe their special beauty to the random hand of Nature. The fire is the ultimate random part of the collaborative equation. He hopes the fire will be his ally, but he knows it will always transform the clay in ways he cannot anticipate.

In 2013 he opened Akira Satake Ceramics/Gallery Mugen as his working studio and exhibition space in the River Arts District in Asheville, NC and built a wood fire train kiln at his studio.

Ken Sedberry

Ken Sedberry received his M.F.A. from RISD in 1977. He accepted a Residency at The Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana where he studied until 1979. Returning to the east coast, he taught at The Catholic University of America until 1981. Ken and his wife, Connie, designed and built his studio and wood-fired kiln in the small mountain community of Loafers’ Glory. It was here that their two sons Noah and Galen were raised.

In 2013 they built a new house, studio and gallery on the South Toe River in Yancey Co., NC. He is a member of the Southern Highlands Handicrafts Guild and Piedmont Craftsmen.

Joey Sheehan

Joey Sheehan works in the rugged Appalachian mountains of Madison County, NC. His work is fired in my two chamber wood kiln that he describes as the "double barrel snub nose train with a cat in the back."

Sheehan's pots are a combination of functional glaze ware and sculptural work with surfaces and forms that exemplify the wood fire process. Sheehan calls his kiln the Golden Antelope. It is a two chamber wood burning kiln and is designed after the extended throat bourry box kilns described in Steve Harrison's book Laid Back Wood Firing. He describes the kiln as a double barrel snub nose train chamber in the front with a catenary in the back. The front chamber is nitty and gritty with a lot of ash and wood in direct contact with the pots, while the back chamber is essentially a reduction glaze chamber with some flashing.

He strives to create extravagant and dramatic surfaces with heat, flame, ash, and occasionally soda in the front while still creating large bodies of clean glaze ware, subtle flashing throughout and fly ash in the back.

Andrew Stephenson

Andrew Stephenson was born in England and he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from East Carolina University in 1996. After graduation he moved to Asheville, NC to take a position at the Odyssey Center for the Ceramic Arts.

Andrew has always loved the wood fired salt-glazed pottery of North Carolina, so when he was offered a two year apprenticeship with Matt Jones, a former apprentice of Todd Piker and Mark Hewitt, he jumped at the chance.

During the apprenticeship he learned the forms and turning techniques that have been passed down from potter to potter since the days of Bernard Leach and Michael Cardew.

When Andrew was finished with his apprenticeship he bought a house in rural Rutherford county, received a grant, and built his own 300 cubic foot wood kiln and holds several kiln openings a year.

Joy Tanner

NC Mountains Pre-Conference Artist

Joy Tanner has been a studio potter in western North Carolina for the past 12 years. She has a BFA in Ceramics from UT Chattanooga, was a Resident Artist at the Odyssey Center for the Ceramic Arts and the EnergyXChange. She currently shares her studio, Wood Song Pottery, in Bakersville, NC, with her husband, William Baker.Joy creates functional and decorative wheel thrown and altered pottery using stoneware and porcelain clays. By hand carving and impressing textures into the surfaces, the atmospheric effects from wood and soda firing create bold contrasts of pattern, color and texture within Joy’s pottery.

Micah Thanhauser

Micah Thanhauser is a potter and mindfulness teacher based out of Asheville, NC. He is a graduate of Brown University, where he studied art, creativity, and meditation. He learned to make pots on his home island of Martha's Vineyard, and studied ceramics at RISD, Haystack, Penland, and in Kyoto, Japan. He makes functional and ceremonial woodfired ceramics, using wild North Carolina clays. He has been working as a studio assistant to Akira Satake since January 2016. He developed and teaches 'Pottery & Meditation' curriculums for adults and youth.

Matt Wegleitner

Matt Wegleitner’s creative expression started at a young age and has continued to develop in various mediums throughout his life. Upon arriving to the Western North Carolina area in early 2009, he began making functional wheel-thrown vessels and was shortly after introduced to the woodfiring process. After a few years of experimenting in functional ceramics he felt his creative expression called for something else…something more personal and expressive.

Matt developed a self-taught hand-building technique during the winter months of 2013. All his sculptures are assembled in his home studio near Asheville, North Carolina. To complete his work he participates in group wood firings in the Western NC area, and has completed over 25 firings in his career. His current body of work consists of eight different series of sculpture, which all feature their own inspirations and design aesthetics.

Notably, Matt has his work in several private collections, is represented by fine art galleries, and was also an invitee to the 2015 & 2016 Annual Potters Market Invitational at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC.